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Toy Fair 2012 behind-the-scenes

MFM was treated to a sneak peek of this year’s hottest toys as well as spotting some of our favourite characters…

Christmas came early, really early, for us here at MFM HQ, as yesterday we got the chance to go to the Toy Fair 2012. Like greyhounds at the gate we were itching to get round and find out all the goss – which included finding out the 32 hottest toys predicted for this year.

We quickly got chatting to the top dogs of the toy world, many of whom had toys so new they were still in production stage. We were pretty chuffed to get a heads up on a new range of Lego stationary, a Sonic Meccano range and a funky new Moshi Monster plush app. You can probably already hear the words “I want”…

Retro was a big buzzword, with miniature travel Operation, Twister and Connect 4, alongside the re-launch of every football lovers’ dream game - Subbuteo. We even managed to get a snap of footballer John Barnes showing off his skills but didn’t dare try and take him on.

Our attention was caught throughout the day by some rather large Bananas in Pyjamas wandering by, as well as Dennis the Menace, Power Rangers and some Peppa Pig characters who all stopped to say hello.

Our celeb radar was clearly working and we managed to catch a quick glimpse of Lorraine Kelly with her CBeebies pals. Lorraine later re-tweeted our pic of her. Well, we do take a rather good phone snap, if we do say so ourselves.

We were also lucky enough to grab Rob Law, owner of Trunki, for a chat. We got a close up view of the new Olympics themed cases as well as the limited edition Dragon ones. Rob told us that Terrance is still his favourite Trunki – they’ve travelled the world together after all.

EastEnders star, Nina Wadia, joined us at the Trunki stand, posing for a very cute pic with a selection of the range. Nina says her kids absolutely love the cases and was eager to know what was coming out next. We were pretty taken with the new fish shaped swimming bag range as well as the upcoming shark bag – fin and all!

What we loved the most was the innovative twists on old classics. Minnie Mouse on pop up tents, plug in Darth Vaders with light up lightsabers and a Winnie the Pooh nightlight you can actually blow out.

The apps world might be going crazy, interactive toys are hitting new heights, but we still left with a warm nostalgic feeling that kids are still getting the good stuff we adored as kids, hooray!